


In The Moments After

by Sapphic_Futurist



Series: Something More Than What They Are [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Divorce, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Loss of Trust, M/M, Marriage breakdown, Partner Betrayal, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Divorce, Steve Rogers Has The Emotional Capacity of a Potato, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26073796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist/pseuds/Sapphic_Futurist
Summary: “Get up. Stop sulking. You don’t have anything to sulk about.”“I’m not sulking, Tony. I’m grieving. I’m happy that this is so easy for you, but I’m not like you.” Steve shakes his head and slaps the envelope against his knees. “This—maybe this meant—maybe we just meant more to me.”
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Something More Than What They Are [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892860
Comments: 30
Kudos: 212





	In The Moments After

**Author's Note:**

> When the rage disappears and the grief is overwhelming. When things aren't always black and white. When we let the people we love hurt us even when we promise ourselves it's the last time. 
> 
> Because my anti-soulmates thought there was more to the story. Turns out, they were right.
> 
> A massive thank you to fundamentalblue who helped make this story so much more than what it could have been, and then beta'd it in full.

Leaving the Avengers had never been a part of the plan.

On a clear day when Tony has full access to his rational thoughts, he can remind himself with confidence that no, he hasn’t left the team in full. If anything, he’s doing Fury a belated favour by stepping back into the consulting role he had been asked to fill from the beginning.

After proving that Tony Stark, Not Recommended, had been a serious underestimation of his skill, Tony could even argue that he deserved this pseudo-retirement. The team has new blood now. Spider-Man, War Machine, and the Winter Soldier have been made permanent additions, along with Ant-Man and the Falcon. Though Tony isn’t so sure about Scott Lang.

It was the right time to go. And he was suffocating at the Compound.

_Isn’t that why we fight, so we can end the fight, so we get to go home?_

Tony’s ended the fight, in a way and in the process, Steve has taken his home. 

It wasn’t intentional. The Compound had never really been home, nor had the Tower or his Malibu property. No, Tony had fluttered from place to place like a homeless hummingbird, until one day home came crashing into his face lips first, headlong and unrepentant; a firecracker exploding in his hands.

The burns followed later.

Tony leans his head back against the raggedy futon in the corner of his workshop. The lumpy old thing has been slipping down for days now, half spilling onto the ground. Every time he goes to readjust it, he finds himself collapsed on top of it, half on the floor, half on the unforgiving mattress. If Pepper were still coming by regularly, she would have forced him to clean it up by now. That, and the littered takeout containers DUM-E has been piling up in the corner.

She would have told him to stop letting himself waste away.

It’s not that he hasn’t been trying.

He wants to ask Pepper if she knows what it’s like to walk around your not-home while the other half of your soul trails behind you, a broken fracture of a shadow that waxes and wanes with the sun but never disappears.

A shadow that should dissolve with the night, but Tony’s had to reinstate to the arc reactor, his heart not quite strong enough to withstand a biting curve of vibranium. Now there’s always just enough light to keep the shadow alive and well-fed.

Pepper still calls, even after he’d snapped at her, and it’s a blessing when she does. The calls are shorter now and come at increasingly unpredictable intervals as the weeks pass. There’s more shop talk than they’ve had in years, but at least he knows that Stark Industries remains in capable hands while he tries to figure out what comes next.

It’s been weeks now, and nothing comes to mind. He finishes errant projects, developing a series of new plans for upgrades for the Avengers, and revisiting where things are at in clean energy these days. Tony can’t help but feel that all of these things are simple fillers, activities he gives himself to pass the time while he does nothing at all. 

His cell phone ringing breaks the monotony of the afternoon.

“Hey, Tony.” Pepper’s voice wraps him in warmth, only a sliver of sadness today.

“Hi Pep.”

“How are you?”

“Happier than a pig in shit. How are you? Happy keeping you busy? I bet he is, that old dog.”

“Tony.” Pepper must be smiling across the phone line, a disapproving smirk teasing across her mouth because her tone is a gentle, playful warning. “Happy’s good. We’re great. He misses you.” The _we all do_ lingers unsaid in the space between them.

“Miss you too, Pep. What’s up?”

“Your divorce judgement is ready.” Pepper doesn’t beat around the bush when it matters, and he’s grateful for that, but it doesn’t stop Tony from closing his eyes and pressing his fingertips into his eyelids until explosions of colour appear.

It’s final.

Whether he has the papers in hand or not, he’s officially divorced. Tony wonders if Steve knows yet, or if he alone has been blessed with the curse of knowledge.

“Great. Happy Divorce Day to me. Will there be a cake?”

“Tony.”

If they make divorce cakes, they’d be like wedding cakes. High, proud tiers except sporting two cracked figurines lying face down on black, salty icing. 

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“No, Pepper, I’m not okay. My husband destroyed our marriage and I’m here all alone trying to put the pieces back together without drinking or offing myself. Stop asking me if I’m okay.” He flicks at crumbs on the futon.

There’s a long, unsettling pause. “Are you really thinking–”

“No, of course I’m not really thinking of offing myself, Jesus.” Tony knows when he’s being an asshole and right now, he’s treading on thin ice, preparing to push away one of the few good people left in his life.

“You’re going to need to come pick up the paperwork. The Clerk’s Office needs ID and a signature, I wasn’t able to pick them up myself. Why don’t you come stay with us for a few days while you’re in town? I’m worried about you. We’re worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Pepper.”

“Come anyways, we want you here.”

Tony sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “You’re too good to me.”

A few days in New York could be manageable. Tony could go back, stay at the Tower in a guest room or something. It didn’t have to be as maudlin as he feels.

So why does even thinking the words leave his breath catching in his throat and his heart racing in his chest, pounding against the back of the arc reactor as if it might escape through his ribcage and run back to Steve at the first chance?

“Fine. Tomorrow then.”

“See you tomorrow, Mr. Stark.”

“Ms. Potts.”

Tony paces through the workshop until he’s worn circles in the tile, then finds his way up to the generous living room. The country property is small, he hadn’t even realized that he owned it and it’s given him some time to think and gain perspective.

As it turns out, the perspective comes and goes at will, and is unreliable at best.

Eventually Tony ends up in his bedroom, circling the floor like a dog unable to settle, waiting for his owner to come home. An owner that’s never coming home but didn’t have the decency to abandon him on the side of the road or drop him at the shelter. No, Tony’s here, restless and trapped, the food and water all dried up. 

It’s a bleak metaphor that leaves him feeling more pathetic than ever. 

He sighs. Dog or not, he doesn’t sleep well.

New York was a bittersweet place before the so-called Civil War. Falling out of the wormhole had changed him, and irrevocably altered his love for the city. When the ghosts of Steve Rogers had started to linger around all his favourite corners, there had been no more reason to stay. 

As his flight touches down, Tony’s righting his suit and tie and striding down to meet Pepper with frayed nerves and a parched throat. She’s waiting for him, hovering at the edge of the airstrip in a pinstripe grey dress, strawberry hair curled lightly at the edges. The woman will never age, and she looks more beautiful every day.

Tony kisses her cheek, letting his lips linger when Happy protests behind her—they’re too close, it’s not appropriate anymore—then steps past her and kisses him next, making him flush. Happy wraps Tony into a surprisingly thick, tight hug and holds on a beat too long.

Tony gives him a set of stunted pats on the back and says, “no tears, Happy. There’s nothing different about today than any other day.”

Happy averts his eyes and turns around, feigning an alert on his phone needs attention as he coughs and wipes at the corner of one eye. “Of course, Boss.”

“Let’s get you home.” Pepper settles a hand on his arm and shepherds him off the airstrip. 

Steve’s face swims before his eyes and he squints into the sun until black swirls and flickers of colour whisk it away. One day, home and New York and Steve won’t be synonymous and Tony will be able to tolerate the city again.

“I need to pick up the papers first.”

“Tony, are you sure? They can wait.”

“Yes,” Tony says, tone bland to his own ears, “And maybe I’ll walk back. Or take the suit. I need some time.”

Pepper presses her palm into his cheek and he leans his head into the comforting caress. He’s trying not to hide or lash out, but without those two basic defenses, what is he?

Vulnerable.

The thought makes his skin crawl. But these are his people and he’s not completely alone without Steve. He knows that. He knows that Pepper and Happy won’t take him for granted. Or haven’t so far. 

Steve hadn’t taken him for granted either, Tony reminds himself. Until he did.

When they get to the car, Happy and Pepper sit together in the front seat and leave Tony alone with his thoughts.

It’s hard not to wonder what Steve is doing, where he is at this exact moment. Tony spends more time than he cares to admit preoccupied with the idea, regardless of where he is in the world.

It’s only been three months.

Ninety days from the date he first handed Steve the papers and let _Petition for Divorce_ eviscerate them both. Amazing how it only takes ninety days to end something Tony spent months planning for. Something he spent years enjoying and forgetting to savour.

Maybe Tony had been greedy, soaking up Steve’s love and affection under the pretense that it was bottomless and there was no reason to conserve. He could drink his fill, full to the brim and never have to consider that he was working with rations.

Until the fix stopped and Tony had gone into a withdrawal that had left him broken and bleeding, wrapped in hospital wires and gauze bandages for weeks. A withdrawal that had almost killed him and had lasted longer than any bender ever had.

It doesn’t matter what Steve is doing today, Tony decides. It’s not Tony’s problem and it hasn’t been for weeks. Today is just like any other day even if the melancholia is lingering in the corners of his mind.

Somewhere after serving the papers the anger had deflated and made way for loneliness, rejection, and hurt to creep back in. The little question of doubt, _why wasn’t I enough_ , at war with feeling affronted and disappointed, and winning more every day. 

Tony wants to hate Steve. Wants to, but doesn’t.

Happy pulls up in front of the Clerk’s Office and Pepper gives him an encouraging smile over her slender shoulder. “You’ll be home for dinner, yes?”

“Of course, Pep. Wouldn’t miss it. And I was kidding about the cake. Please don’t get me a cake, unless you want to see something uglier than my fortieth.”

Her laugh feels genuine so he smiles and gives them a peace sign as Pepper rolls up her window and the happy couple drives away smiling. 

Outside the Clerk’s Office, he pauses, just for a minute. The sun is a touch too warm over the layers of the suit and as he glances up at the unimposing doors, he can’t help but wonder how many people have walked through these doors, only to walk out alone. Maybe in more ways than one. 

Before he can tug on the handle, the door flies open and he’s attacked by a thick wall of muscle topped off with crystal blue eyes and a bristled jaw.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Tony stumbles backward, ungraceful and a flurry of limbs as Steve reaches out a hand to steady him.

“Tony? What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?”

Steve frowns, lips pursing as he holds up a legal-sized envelope, thin enough that it could be empty. “Our Judgement was ready.”

“Right. Well, congratulations Rogers, you’re a free man.”

Pain clouds Steve’s eyes and almost instantly Tony sees a glimmer of tears there. If Steve starts crying, Tony will start crying and then where will they be? Sobbing over the broken pieces of their marriage in the street?

Been there, done that, didn’t change anything then and won’t change anything now.

“I never wanted to be a free man,” Steve has the audacity to say.

A hundred possible responses come to mind and Tony settles on cold and detached, offering Steve a roll of his eyes and a shrug. “That’ll happen to you sometimes.”

“Tony–”

“No, just stop. Just—Steve, seriously. Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen and go on our way until we have to see each other again. Why draw this out? What could this possibly be doing for you?”

Steve rolls his shoulders back, and for the briefest moment, Tony thinks he might actually be talking to Captain America. They blur together before his eyes, a mixture of earnest regard and fierce determination, and it doesn’t feel like the man he’d married. There’s a touch too much of that red, white and blue. 

“Tony, I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you too.” Tony snaps, meeting his eye before he steps past him to the left and grips the door handle. “Now, get out of the way. I have a divorce certificate to pick up.” He crosses the threshold without looking back. 

There’s a long line of civilians ahead of him which is almost reassuring. When Tony leaves the Clerk’s Office, Steve will be gone and he’ll go ‘home’ and have a nice dinner with Pepper and Happy. Tomorrow he’ll take Peter out for a coffee and let him regale Tony with stories of his summer internship at SI before he heads out to the Coast and figures out what comes next.

That’s exactly the opposite of what happens.

Striding back out of the Clerk’s Office almost a half-hour later, papers tucked under one arm and cell phone in the other, Tony finds Steve still waiting for him outside. 

Sitting on the curb like an overgrown child doesn’t do him any favours; Steve looks miserable.

Tony prods him with a shoe and he glances up, eyes stormy. It’s hard to say whether those bottomless blue eyes are clearing or preparing for a second downpour. Tony tries to remind himself that he doesn’t care, Steve isn’t his problem anymore.

When he had begged not to feel so lonely, this isn’t quite what he was hoping for. Resentment burns like acid in the back of his throat.

“Get up. Stop sulking. You don’t have anything to sulk about.”

“I’m not sulking, Tony. I’m grieving. I’m happy that this is so easy for you, but I’m not like you.” Steve shakes his head and slaps the envelope against his knees. “This—maybe this meant—maybe we just meant more to me.”

A chill slides down the back of his spine and the edges of Tony’s vision blurs white. “You think what we had meant _more to you_?” If that isn’t the fucking icing on the cake. “Are you fucking serious? Meant more to you. Fucking hell, Rogers! You’re one delusional motherfucker, aren’t you?”

“Tony, calm down. Don’t–”

“No, shut up. You don’t get to say something like that and then tell me to _calm down_ as if I’m having an irrational response to the most ludicrous, idiotic–”

“Fine, you’re right. I’m wrong. Clearly, I’m mistaken.” Steve back peddles quickly, offering a non-apology that’s all placation and stokes the fires of disdain in Tony’s belly.

“Where do you even get off, acting like some jilted woman. You almost _killed me_ , Steve. Do you understand that? How fucked that is? And even if you hadn’t, you lied. For years. Not weeks, not months. Goddamn years.” Tony balls his hands into fists at his sides. His voice is too loud and people are staring from across the street, peering over their glasses at the insane man screaming on the sidewalk. But he can’t seem to stop. “How dare you!”

Until today, ‘spitting mad’ was a metaphorical turn of phrase. Now he understands. If Tony cared enough to lower himself to that standard, he would spit on the ground at Steve’s feet.

Steve pushes off the curb, looming over Tony the way he always does when he’s starting to lose ground and resolves himself to push on. Tony flinches without meaning to. Maybe once upon a time that had worked, or Tony had ceded ground because it had felt like the right thing to do. But not now. Not anymore.

“Back the fuck up.”

Steve takes one massive step back but his eyes flash and his posture is ramrod straight. That is, until his eyes clock the way that Tony’s left hand is shaking at his side and his eyes fly up. The tension in Steve’s body drains onto the pavement and in seconds there’s no fight left in him.

“Tony, it’s fine. I didn’t mean to–”

“Hold on.” When Steve opens his mouth again Tony shoots him a fierce look and he snaps it shut. Tony allows himself two shuddering breaths, just two, enough to stop the trembling in his fingertips even though the rest of his arm still rattles at his side and a small gust of wind might tip him over.

The anger doesn’t feel any better than the despair.

Nothing will ever feel _right_ about any of this.

“Are you okay?”

Tony collects the pieces of his resolve and shoves them into place. “This did not mean more to you than it did to me. And you’re an asshole for saying it.”

“I know.”

“I think you may be one of the most selfish people I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah,” Steve huffs, “I think I got that.”

“Stop acting so indignant. You threw this away, Steve. Not me.”

“I don’t think that’s fair. I wanted to talk. I tried to talk to you. I would have done anything to make this right, why do you not understand that?”

Isn’t that always the question?

How does _Tony_ not understand? Why doesn’t _Tony_ see that Steve is just doing what’s best for all of them? _Tony_ is the embodiment of everything irrational and Steve with his superior moral compass will save the day every time, _Tony_ just needs to let him.

Tony folds his arms over his chest and gets a visceral memory of the two of them, in exactly this position, three months prior. Except this time, when he glances down at Steve’s hand something aches inside him because Steve has finally retired his wedding band. For the briefest moment Tony thinks maybe it’s around his throat—but no, there’s no chain.

What sad, dark corner does his wedding ring live in now?

“I do understand that. I understand that’s what you think, anyway. You wouldn’t have done everything because you didn’t do anything. Steve, you didn’t even scratch the surface, understand? You never even apologized—”

“I did! I wrote you that letter—”

Tony huffs an almost-laugh and closes his eyes, tipping his face up towards the sun to pray to Odin for patience or a quick strike of lightning. When he opens them, Steve no longer looks gutted and there’s a renewed anger there simmering below the surface.

“You still don’t get it.”

“Tony, come on. Stop talking in riddles and just come out with it. Why are you doing this?”

“Why are _you_ doing this? I didn’t ask you to wait here. I didn’t ask for this conversation. I’m just trying to figure out how to be happy, alright, Steve? I just want to move on.”

Steve seems to consider that for a moment, rolling Tony’s words around in his mind and translating them into a language that suits him best.

“I’m not happy, either.” Okay, that’s one way to interpret that. “I think about you all the time. You know I remember everything, right? Too clearly. So clearly, it’s not fair. I can’t imagine you’d have any idea how much I want to forget what your mouth tasted like the first time I kissed you, and the way you felt when you were sleeping on my chest during movie night.” Steve balls his hands into fists at his sides and his eyes flicker between Tony’s face and over his shoulder, as if he can’t bear to look at him and speak the words at the same time.

“Steve, don’t—” _Please, please don’t._

“I wish I could forget what you looked like the day I married you. And fuck if I don’t wish I could forget your voice saying ‘I’ve been with other people’ even though I know you hadn’t. I know it, even if you won’t ever admit it. I know you wouldn’t—not while we were still married—but hell if I don’t hear that over and over in my head and it’s—” Steve’s voice cracks and breaks off, a hand coming up to rub across his eyes and press into his temples.

A sob bubbles up and escapes even though the physical restraint Steve is using to hold it back looks impressive.

“Okay, okay, stop,” Tony says, feeling his throat tightening. “Don’t do this now.”

“If you had any idea—”

Steve’s not going to stop, so Tony cuts him off and aims to finish this. “I do have an idea. I do understand. Only I wish it was that I couldn’t stop seeing you on our wedding day. Fuck, I wish I couldn’t stop thinking about dates or kisses or the first time you told me you loved me. Are you listening? I would kill for that.”

Tony’s not thinking rationally. He’s going to regret this. He knows that it’s not the right thing to say but he’s going to say it anyway because maybe Steve deserves to hurt, at least something close to what he suffers with. Maybe Steve deserves to ache with it, too.

“All I get to see over and over again is you driving the shield into my chest! All I ever get to see now is you trying to kill me, Steve!” A familiar burn pricks behind his eyes and Tony wants to scream. Hasn’t he cried enough?

Steve chokes, gasping in a breath as if he can’t get enough air and staggers under the weight of what Tony has said, as if Tony has struck him.

A disgusting grimace contorts Steve’s face and the envelope in his hands is stained with his tears, blurring the plain black lettering on the front into a mess of ink. Steve’s gone a corpse shade of pale and Tony wonders if he might be sick.

“Tony, no,” Steve gasps around the words, “I never meant to—please believe me I didn’t want, didn’t ever think—not once. Oh god.”

Is this what Tony wants?

To pull Steve down and watch him shatter into pieces on the concrete, his immovable statue of a husband—ex-husband—lying in rubble at his feet? He knows he can do a damn good job, and yet he feels guilt wrap around the arc reactor and squeeze.

There had been a time once where Tony would have gone to the end of the earth to protect Steve from anything. From everything. Hurting him now won’t make a difference. It only makes Tony ache to soothe him, to smooth away the stinging barbs he’s embedded under Steve’s skin.

Things don’t change that much, just because a handful of signatures are curled in his fist, reminding him that it’s over now.

“Tony, I’m sorry.”

“I know. Shh, okay. It doesn’t matter.” Of course, it matters. It will always matter. But what’s the point?

Reaching out and touching Steve is his first big mistake, because he can’t pat his arm without squeezing to ground him and stepping into his space. Steve’s arms wrap around him and he thinks about pulling away, he really does, but he watches in disbelief as his arm slides up to wrap around Steve’s neck and pull him down.

Strange, how a body Steve’s maimed and made bleed still craves being pressed up against him, still finds a way to slot him perfectly back into place. Steve clings to him, presses his face into Tony’s shoulder and weeps.

The second mistake comes when Tony turns and presses his forehead against Steve’s temple. He lets himself breath Steve in, inhaling the rich, spicy smell of his shampoo and something that’s unmistakably _Steve._

“I don’t sleep without you.” Steve gasps into his shirt. “I can’t. The nightmares—I’ve tried everything. Sometimes I think I’ll go insane with it. Just tell me how you do it. Maybe I can—”

And then, the third. “I don’t sleep without you either, Steve.”

“Maybe we could…” Steve tightens his grip around Tony’s waist and Tony stiffens because whatever Steve is going to say next is something that he’s afraid will set Tony off and maybe it will. Maybe it should.

Maybe Steve should give him the chance to decide for himself instead of trying to hold him still. 

Everything about Steve should have Tony running for the hills, but here he is in broad daylight in the middle of a sidewalk in New York, holding the love of his life anyways. “Maybe we could just sleep. Together. While you’re here. Just sleep.”

Tony closes his eyes and lets out a breath. He’s a weak, broken man. What’s the use in pretending otherwise?

“Okay.”

That’s how they end up back at the Tower, creeping in one of the service entrances like bandits in the night because Tony will be damned if he runs into Pepper or Happy, or Odin-forbid, Rhodey on a last-minute visit into the city. JARVIS directs them through the Tower without being detected, which seems to startle Steve before he relaxes and whispers that he’s missed him into the quiet of the elevator. JARVIS doesn’t reply.

Maybe his coding can’t understand the complexity of this fucked up situation either.

They stumble into one of the hallways of guest suites, more than Tony had ever needed or would ever need, and JARVIS agrees to ensure they aren’t disturbed though there’s a reluctance in his tone that Tony shrugs off.

Steve hasn’t said much since they started out towards the Tower, so Tony hasn’t had anything to respond to and even if he wanted to say something, he’s not sure how or what or why. Instead, when the door clicks shut behind him Tony starts unknotting his tie and shrugs off his jacket in silence, nodding pointedly towards Steve to follow suit.

Steve undresses in the same clinical way he always has, something leftover from the war that he never managed to shake. Even when Tony would strip him slow and languid, pausing to enjoy the little cuts of skin that appeared beneath shirts or through parted buttons, Steve would get flustered and pull everything off all at once.

Maybe Steve just liked to be naked, and hell if Tony didn’t love being pressed up against him when he was.

He’s not naked now though, neither of them are, stripped down to boxers and undershirts as they slide between cool and unfamiliar sheets. Steve’s eyes grow sadder when they clock the arc reactor, fixed back into place in the centre of Tony’s chest. Steve doesn’t say anything, just shuffles forward, closes his eyes, and leans in slow enough to give Tony a chance to stop him before he presses his forehead against it. 

A nightlight to chase away the bad dreams. The strands of Steve’s hair catch in the blue light and cast unsettling shadows on the wall behind him.

“This hurts more.” Steve breaths against him. “Having you like this and knowing what we are now.”

“I know. Yet here we are.”

“I’m so tired of hurting, Tony. If I could just—”

Tony runs a hand through the silky strands of his hair, shushing him. “We’re no good at talking, remember.” He presses a mockery of a smile into the crown of Steve’s head. “And it won’t change anything now.”

Even as the words leave his mouth, they’re a lie.

Damn it, he’s been lying to himself and will always lie to himself when Steve’s involved. Talking about it could change _everything_. If Tony’s trying to convince himself that he wouldn’t re-marry this man in a heartbeat—if Steve would just—

He won’t, so it’s no use thinking about. Tony can’t wait forever for something that isn’t going to come. They’re divorced for a reason. An important one, when he has enough space to remember what the ambiguous perspective deigns to tell him on a good day.

“No, but we were good at other things.”

“Never fixed anything with sex, Steve.”

“No, but, felt better.”

Tony isn’t sure how it happens, but he’s not surprised.

Steve will probably remember forever, the lucky bastard, because one moment they’re trying to sleep, Tony’s hand tangled in the hair at the back of Steve’s neck as Steve’s warm breath flares around the reactor, and the next they’re kissing.

A hitched breath escapes Steve as he opens his mouth, tentative but always so precise, lips caressing Tony’s in soft strokes; a moment to part before diving back in again, the caresses growing longer as Steve’s tongue works between his lips. Steve kisses him lightly, taking his time, the way he had when the eagerness of their very first kiss had faded and Steve was rolled beneath Tony, all hitching gasps into Tony’s mouth as he turned to putty in Tony’s hands.

He tastes as nervous as he did that first time.

Would it really bad so bad if Tony imagined that that’s what this was? In a way, this is another first.

_I’ve never done this before, Tony. You’ll show me, won’t you?_

Tony deepens the kiss with a sweep of his tongue, tilting Steve’s chin up further and running his fingers along his jaw, pressing into the tender spot behind Steve’s ears that drives him wild. Right on cue, he moans and shifts forward on the bed, pressing them together from chest to knee.

This is right. This is where Tony’s meant to be. This is exactly where he belongs. He pushes everything else away, if only for a few moments.

“What’re we doing?” Steve whispers against his lips.

It’s a valid question because Tony remembers how destroyed he was after the last time. Which was supposed to be _the_ last time.

Tony’s going to stop this. He will, it’s just been so long and kissing Steve is like tasting sunshine, warming him from the inside out. He’s going to stop any minute now. Their divorce certificates are sitting a stone-throw away and here Tony is prepared to fuck his husband—ex-husband—all over again as if nothing’s happened.

What comes out is, “I’m grieving.”

“I can’t,” Steve’s voice is thick and pitched low with desire, but there’s reluctance there that slows Tony just for a second, “not like last time. Tony, not like last time.”

“No,” Tony breaths into his mouth, petting a hand down Steve’s chest. “Not like last time.”

This is about closure, and feeling good. Steve wants to feel better right? And it’s been ninety-two days since Tony’s last felt good.

Steve has an insistent hand on his hip, tugging him closer until he’s taking on some of Tony’s weight and helping him shift over Steve’s hips to close him in. Hovering above him so they’re not fully touching, Tony savours the way it feels to be above him. Powerful. That’s what he needs. To be in control.

The kisses continue, unbroken and growing more and more desperate as Steve possesses him with his tongue and sharp nips to his lower lip that make Tony groan. Pleasure sparks along every nerve ending and Tony feels so exposed, naked even in the thin layers of clothing. Steve has always stripped him of defenses, leaving him bare.

_I want to keep you like this all the time, naked and ready for me. How did I ever survive before being inside you?_

Steve yanks at his hips, closing the distance between them and drawing a groan out of the back of Tony’s throat. Steve is rock hard between them, thrusting light against him so they roll and slide together. A familiar rhythm in an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar not-marriage.

The light from the arc reactor feels too bright, lighting up all the new lines Tony traces in Steve’s face. The divots that have formed and remained along the expanse of his forehead, pinched between his eyebrows. Such a serious, intent focus. 

Steve had been so desperate their first time together, so eager to learn and to please.

_Show me how to make you feel good. I want to watch you fall apart. Show me, Tony, please._

To be the first person to touch Steve had been a gift, and after, when Steve was breathless, spent inside of Tony’s body, he’d given him another gift and begged Tony to take him apart too. _To have_ him.

Tony wants to have him now, but not as fiercely as he wants Steve to fill up the empty cavern of loss inside him and if this is the only way he can get there, he’ll take it. Tony will take whatever he can have. He’s grieving. He deserves this.

“Fuck me,” Tony groans into Steve’s ear, mouth exploring along the shell before he sucks on the lobe and feels Steve’s cock twitch against the curve of his ass.

Tony doesn’t whisper how he wants Steve to make love to him, possess him until Tony feels raw and home again. He kisses the unspoken words into Steve’s mouth and rolls against him harder, trying to spur him on. 

“Come here. Tony, come here.” Steve’s tugging at the remaining scraps of his clothes, peeling his undershirt over his head and shoving a hand into his boxers. A hot palm wraps around his cock and gives it a loving stroke, firm from base to tip and Tony arches into it, pressing his forehead against Steve as a whimper that could be a sob slips free.

Tony’s hands work to have Steve equally as bare, shoving and pulling until they join Tony’s clothing in a heap beside the bed. Tony touches every inch he can get his hands on, caressing the barely noticeable ripples between Steve’s ribs and biting down on one of Steve’s nipples until he’s panting, groaning his pleasure into the dark.

Every sound is a reminder of the first time. It’s always like this when Steve is under him. A mental movie that Tony could watch again and again, never tiring of the hard lines of Steve’s body between his legs and under his hands.

_Listen to you, sweetheart. That’s just perfect, honey. Keep moaning just like that, Steve, so I know I’m still on the right track. You love that, don’t you? So perfect. So sweet for me._

Steve is more efficient than he once was, slicking up his fingers with lube from the bedside table—whoever had left it behind, Tony’s not sure— and tracing the seam of Tony’s ass before rubbing against his hole and pressing in. Tony groans and shoves back, taking Steve’s fingers into the second knuckle in a fierce shove that has Steve gripping his hips to hold him still.

There’s still that part of Tony that wants it to hurt. He can blame Steve afterward if it hurts. But this soft, loving stroking that Steve’s set on makes him want to cry. It’s too good. Tony doesn’t deserve this. If he wasn’t good enough for Steve before, he shouldn’t be good enough for him now just because he’s spreading his legs again and desperate enough to let Steve back into the confines of his body.

_I don’t want to hurt you, Tony. Slow down, we’ve got all the time in the world. Stop trying to rush through my first time._

Steve preps him slowly, kissing Tony in thorough, all-consuming kisses until he’s grinding down on three fingers and scratching Steve’s chest begging him for something more. Steve’s eyes meet his, an endless sea of blue and Tony reaches between them to slide down onto his length, watching as his eyelids flutter and try to stay focused.

When Tony starts to move, a painstaking, controlled pace meant to wind Steve up and drive him mad, Steve arches up and wraps his arms around Tony’s waist. Just like the first time, he presses his mouth to the arc reactor, tracing the mottled skin at the edges with his tongue. 

There’s no sensation left there these days. That’s different, startling Tony for a moment as the warmth of Steve’s kisses are lost on the new, smooth scar tissue. He swallows, the intimacy suddenly making it harder to breath and Tony can feel himself preparing to slip out of his own skin and flee. 

“This is how it should have been, last time,” Steve whispers into his skin.

“Shh, don’t ruin it.” Steve’s already ruined it, when he raised the shield over his head and—

The hands on his hips are biting into his flesh and Tony reaches down to press one harder, hoping Steve gets the message. When he does, Tony whines into his mouth, the pain-pleasure blurring together, recreating the bruises that Tony has always cherished there before.

“I’m never going to stop loving you. I can’t, Tony. I’ll love you until the day I die.”

Tony’s breath catches and before he can stop it, a sob slips out and he presses wet eyes into the curve of Steve’s throat.

Steve’s going to ruin this. Steve ruins everything. 

A hand comes up to clasp the back of his neck maybe to calm him or to keep him in place, he’s not sure, but it settles there as a steady, unsettling pressure.

It’s not fair. Nothing is fair, and this is supposed to feel good, damn it.

The tight reins Tony has on his emotions uncurl and slip from his grasp. “How am I ever going to be happy without you?” Tony demands, muffled into Steve’s shoulder, clenching the hand that isn’t tangled in Steve’s hair into a fist pressed into his shoulder blade. “How could you do this to me. You promised me. You _promised_ , Steve.”

The tears are coming faster than he can stop them, slipping over Steve’s shoulder and onto his chest in shimmering rivulets. Tony licks at them, catching what he can and kissing them back into Steve’s clavicle.

“I’m sorry, I am so fucking sorry.”

All the while, Steve never stops rolling his hips. Never stops slipping in and out of Tony’s body, caressing him from the inside out as if he can chase away the grief with pleasure. It’s bittersweet, the slick slide of Steve in his ass even as his heart is cracking all over again.

Tony should have known better. He did know better, he just told himself he didn’t care. The desire to shut Steve up wells up and Tony’s never been known for his self-control.

“You should’ve killed me.”

“Don’t fucking say that.” Steve thrusts hard into him, making Tony cry out and dig his fingers into the curve of Steve’s back. He twists and bites his mouth in retribution and Steve does it again. “Don’t ever fucking say that to me again.”

“It would have been better than this. Do you hear me?” Tony grips the hair at Steve’s nape and tugs until Steve’s looking at him, yanking with enough force that he should be ripping Steve’s hair at the root, but doesn’t. “What you’ve done is worse, Steve.”

“Tony, please.”

There are a hundred pleas stirring behind Steve’s eyes, but he doesn’t say anything more. There’s only silence, Steve accepting his lot, bowing his head and relinquishing control as Tony shifts and takes him deeper, rolling his hips and chasing after anything that might feel good in the maze of all this pain.

Nothing can take it away. Tony tries to tell Steve that with his body, fuck the loss back inside of Steve where he can keep it for his own.

“This is what you wanted, right Steve? You wanted to fuck until it feels better. Does it feel better?” Tony’s voice is a hiss between his teeth, hands scrambling at Steve’s back as Steve straightens, sliding backward with Tony in his arms until he’s pressed against the headboard and Tony is sitting tall astride his lap. It gives Tony more leverage, and Steve helps him fuck down harder and harder until it starts to blur into a searing pain deep in Tony’s belly.

Steve presses his forehead into the arc reactor again, rolling back and forth and there are tears landing on Tony’s belly now.

“No? Good. Fuck, Steve. At least fucking try. Try and make this feel better. Come on.”

“Tony, stop. Stop.”

Tony freezes for a second, hands flying off Steve’s shoulders. “Stop?”

“Stop talking. Please.” Steve’s pleading voice is barely audible where it’s wafting up from his chest and Tony forces himself to breathe and relax, spreading his legs a degree wider to sit fully back on Steve’s cock. Even though he doesn’t deserve it, Tony humours him anyways, nosing at Steve’s temple until Steve draws his face back and captures Tony’s mouth in a fierce, earth-shattering kiss.

Steve keeps kissing him.

He doesn’t let Tony up for air until they’re forced to gasp into each other's mouth, trading kisses that turn into a wet smear of mouth against mouth. Steve picks up the pace, shoving into Tony with a singular purpose, and reaches between them to wrap a hand around Tony’s cock which slides between his slick fingers and brushes against the soft curl of Steve’s belly every few thrusts.

Is this letting go? Will it finally be out of his system after this?

If the last time was hate-fucking his way to closure, Tony can’t begin to understand what this is. Whatever he was looking for a handful of minutes ago is long gone now and the ground he’s gained in ninety days is meaningless. Tony is in tatters and yet again he’s as battered and exposed as he was in Siberia.

He laughs, wildly into Steve’s mouth. And he thought he had known devastation before.

Steve starts to come apart under him. Tony feels it in the way his thighs start to tremble and Steve’s fist works rapidly across his cock. Between them, Tony’s prick is red and aching, disappearing in the warm slide of Steve’s fingers and he has no idea how he’s even still hard, his mind buzzing with loss and heartbreak.

Steve has laid him down on the pyre and set him ablaze, thrusting into him while he burns and turns to ash, the taste of Steve’s kisses as bitter as charcoal.

When Steve finally comes, he sobs again, a guttural broken sound that triggers Tony’s own release. It’s not even so much as a catharsis, Tony’s only left feeling gutted. Empty and numb, so deeply numb that Steve’s fingers on his hips lose their sensation and Tony floats away, up, up, up and above them, watching from a distance as they come down together when Steve gently pries him back and settles Tony onto his back next to him.

There’s the briefest sensation of Steve’s palm covering the arc reactor but he can’t feel the tips of his fingers lost around the edges.

Tony stares up at the ceiling and waits for the blinding white snow to clear from his eyes.

Afterward, it’s too quiet and Tony focuses on the even paces of Steve’s breathing. They lay side by side like something out of a grotesque romantic comedy, sheets pulled up for a modicum of modesty that means nothing when you’ve been together as long as they have. That, and Tony’s told his own husband—ex-husband— he wished he had killed him. What need does he have for modesty now?

“Are you alright?”

“I haven’t been alright for a year, Steve. What kind of question is that?”

“I don’t know, it felt like it needed to be asked so I asked it. I don’t know what else to say.”

Tony sighs, rubbing at the ache that’s taken up permanent residence behind the arc reactor. Ironic, now that it’s back, it seems committed to reminding Tony of all the painful memories that brought it barrelling back into Tony’s chest.

“We’re not going to be those people. Who keep trying to find a way back to each other and destroy everything else in the process. This won’t happen again.”

“Why? This isn’t hurting anyone.”

Tony gives him an incredulous look. “It hurts _me_.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I know it’s not what you meant. But it’s true. Being close to you hurts me, Steve. I have never met another person who can hurt me quite like you do. And the fucked-up thing is I love you anyway. That’s not fair.” Tony meets his eye, reaches up, and slides his palm across his face. His thumb traces the hollows under one of Steve’s beautiful eyes before dropping down to do the same to his lips. Steve kisses the pad of his finger. “I don’t deserve this. And you don’t deserve me.”

“I know. I want you anyway.” Selfish. So fucking selfish. There’s still something vindicating about hearing it aloud.

“So, we’re not going to be those people. I’m going to get dressed and walk out that door and it’s over. Done. It has to be.”

Steve props himself up on one elbow and palms the side of Tony’s face. How Steve can caress him as if he’s something delicate and worthy of being cherished, Tony doesn’t know. He’s hurt Steve just now, cut him deep, and Steve wears that baldly across his face. He’s holding Tony anyways. 

They’re toxic.

“It’s not going to be like that, and you know it,” Steve says with a stubborn purse of his lips. “You’ll be back at the Compound in a month and this is going to happen all over again.”

Tony’s almost forgotten. The pressure to announce the New Avengers has been high and with a great deal of reluctance, Tony had eventually given over and agreed. A benefit, to both introduce the new members of the team and present the expansion of the Maria Stark Foundation relief efforts on a global scale. 

It’s all politics, with Captain America’s face and Tony Stark’s name. A match made in heaven; the perfect end to a so-called Civil War. 

Tony grits his teeth, feeling the light connection of tense muscle straining under Steve’s palm. “No, it won’t.” 

Groaning, Tony heaves over and rolls sideways off the bed, fishing around on the floor for his boxers and tugging them up over his hips. The rest of his clothes follow, and Steve lays there watching him, eyes cloudy.

Being clothed helps him heave his defenses back into place and he feels himself put distance between them, shoving Steve back onto his side of the line and telling himself already that this was a mistake. That now he’s back at square one with a broken heart and a stomach full of rage, blackened around the edges with sorrow and grief.

“Stay a while longer?”

Tony shoots Steve a blank look. “I can’t, Pep and Happy are expecting me.”

“Can’t or don’t want to?”

“Aren’t they interchangeable at this point?”

Steve gives a deflated sigh and sits up, arms resting on the arch of his knees under the light sheet.

The fight is bleeding out of him and exhaustion is creeping back in. Tony feels fucked ten ways to Sunday and just wants to crawl into the nearest bathroom and scrub himself until he feels clean then sleep for a decade.

“We should have tried harder. I should have tried harder, Tony. I know that. Maybe we should have talked to someone. A therapist? Sam’s said that could’ve helped, but I kept thinking about how you said you didn’t like therapists, that they don't work for you.” Steve exhales and closes his eyes. When he opens them, his breath has settled over Tony, hot with blame and Steve gives him a sad, resigned smile. “I would have tried therapy for you, if you’d let me.”

Tony swallows, saliva thick and sour in the back of his mouth. An empty commitment, months too late. “It’s a shame you never asked, Steve.” 

Maybe Steve ignores him, maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe that response doesn’t compute with Steve’s filtered way of experiencing the world, because he doesn’t grace Tony with a response. Instead, he tips his head to the side and says, “I love you, Tony.”

Tony tries not to, really, he does, but what’s the point? 

“I love you too.”

Crossing the short steps to the door, Tony spares him a glance over his shoulder and Steve gives him a little half-smile, just the edge of his mouth curling upward. The door closes behind him with a click, and when Tony steps into one of the suites down the hall and into the shower, he stays there for a long time.

Later, the elevator door opens and Rhodey is there smiling and looking relaxed in a pair of old jeans and a ratty MIT t-shirt. Pepper and Happy are setting plates on the table and the food is almost ready. It smells amazing, even though Tony’s appetite is nowhere to be found.

Rhodey wraps him in a tight squeeze and guides him over to the table. Tony sits down with his family and eats his dinner the way he’s supposed to, a smile plastered on his face as Rhodey enlightens him on what he’s missed and demands new perks be added into his braces. Like being able to shoot missiles. Because Rhodey needs things like that. 

Behind his eyes, Tony is forced to replay a vivid image of Steve, seated across from him in the penthouse dining room while he twirls pasta onto his fork with one hand because he won’t ask Tony to relinquish the other. The last family dinner they’d had, just the two of them, before Ross had come with the Accords and everything had gone to shit.

In upstate New York, Steve is probably getting back to the Compound, dropping his divorce certificate onto the counter, and sitting down to dinner with the team. Tony images him smiling like nothing is wrong—he probably wouldn’t have even said where he was going today.

The little part of Tony’s heart that follows Steve wherever he goes is missing again. For the brief moment they were together, it was nice to feel whole. Even when it wasn’t.

Amid the hum of conversation around him, Tony thinks about home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes things get better before they get worse. Hold on for the next few parts. Turns out, I wrote three subsequent parts in this series to fix what I broke in Part 1. 
> 
> Comments are appreciated, well-loved and feed the ansty author.


End file.
